Is this what they deserve in such old age, embracing death in the lines while waiting for pensions and some collecting garbage outside ‘prestigious institutions’?

It was on 26^th October that the elderly Railway pensioner, Mahmood Khan was so miserable and in dire need of his pension of Rs. 4000 that he stood in queue throughout the night in order to be the first one to receive his pension early in the morning.
He waited throughout the night outside National Bank of Pakistan’s Mughalpura Railways Workshop branch in Lahore.

He did not get to see his pension amount in his hand the other day as when he fell to the ground and was escorted to the hospital by his colleagues, he was pronounced dead. He had been waiting for his pension since the first of October and had retired from
the Railways ten years ago.

Whatever went on after that and who ever took notice does not make a pin’s difference as the father, brother, husband and the bread winner of a family has passed away. Is this what the poor old soul deserved after serving the stinking Railways throughout
his life, that they gift him with his death and put a full stop on his waiting in the queue this way round?

Each morning I come across the most ‘prestigious hospital’ of the Federal capital, Shifa International, instead of noticing their impressive and majestic building I always have my mind and eyes stuck on an elderly who collects the dried out leaves and flowers
from the lawns on the exterior of the building.

He is always dressed up in a very neat and white shalwar kameez with a ‘namaaz topi’ on his head. He wears spectacles and also has proper shoes and socks on. I hope that you can imagine the sort of decent and angelic person I am trying to portray.

The students and doctors who go past him never even bother glancing towards him and they are the future and existing doctors ‘who serve humanity and that is an institution that gives birth to such humane individuals’. I would have preferred staying an illiterate
if that is what is required for at least noticing and understanding the misery of another human being.  

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=2499

Posted by Anita Khalid on Nov 2 2011. Filed under Editorial, Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry